On Humans
by Janette Morgan
Summary: Still stranded on the moon after countless months, Wheatley starts to get philosophical about humans.


I'll never understand why humans are so obsessed with themselves. Don't get me wrong, they're adorable. And fun to be around, sometimes. But they're – well, they're just awfully human, aren't they?

I mean, no, definitely they have those "leg" things going for them. Legs are pretty cool. You can walk around on them, and jump. Jumping is definitely a handy feature. And then there's the hands, also useful, especially the grabby finger parts. Good for opening doors, picking up stranded robots, using technology – good stuff. I mean, it's all right.

But _humans._ I mean, they smell. Well, obviously _I _can't smell them; nobody gave me that particular power, thank goodness. But I _know_ they do. It just pops into my head every time one of them shows up: Human. Probably smells weird. I can't help it; it's just one of those things you think about.

And then there's the water. Don't sit there and look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. They're _made_ of the stuff! And it's constantly leaking out of them, too. When they're sad, when they're excited, when it's hot, when they're in love – or whatever humans do that approximates love, anyway. They even drink water _just for it to come out later. _And it just comes out everywhere! Especially when it's hot. And stuff _grows_ in it. Nasty little things that... well, don't actually affect me, but they're supposed to be pretty bad for humans.

Seriously, though, what is with that? I feel sorry for them. I'd feel sorry for _anyone_ who had to go through their life so... soggy. If that was me, I'd definitely feel sorry for myself.

I mean, it's not that they don't have _any_ perks. That self-repairing thing – yeah, healing, that's the one – is actually pretty good; someone should figure out how to get that onto robots. And, of course, those marvelously useful fingers – wait, I already covered those. On the other hand, they're pretty fragile compared to robots. Well, obviously not _all_ robots. Like, they definitely hold up better than the turrets. But look at some of our testing robots – actually, we went ahead and made those cheap so that we could replace them easily when something goes wrong. Okay, bad example.

They don't live very long, though, do they? You know, one of us can last for a good centuries, while humans, they just kind of... fall apart after about seventy years. Sure, they'll hold up longer if you knock them out, and that's pretty good. But then we get into brain damage. Which is definitely a thing that doesn't happen with robots. I think. Almost sure of that one.

Yep, still in space, good on you for noticing. Bugger off for a couple minutes, would you?

So they can definitely do a couple of things that robots aren't really good at. Like... well, actually, we've been doing that for a while. And... no, we've got a robot to do that too. I mean, we wouldn't exist without humans. They built the robots who built most of us. And came up with the facility. So that's something. Just like how there were monkeys, and then they got smarter and started making humans instead of more monkeys. That's probably what humans are best at. Making robots. Definitely smarter than making more humans, so good on them for that.

So, good points: good at jumping, useful fingers, built robots. Bad points: smelly, unusually wet... they break pretty easily, too. And over the strangest things! You'd think that a species that lives on water wouldn't die every time you threw them in it, but it turns out that's also bad for them.

And some of them are pretty superior, too. I mean, Chell was all right. Never said a bad word to me. I do miss her, a lot more than the other humans I knew. She was almost like a robot. Smart, task-oriented... not to prone to breaking, either. Very well-made, that one. Where was I? Oh, yeah, superiority. Yeah, there were a lot of them that were just like, "hey, robot, I'm better than you 'cause you're a robot, you're not really alive, you don't have feelings. What are you doing here? I want to talk to a HUMAN, not some automated MACHINE." And I'm not even really a robot – not sure why everyone calls me that. I could be, if I had a body; can't imagine that'd be too bad. I could do stuff. I mean more stuff. Wouldn't have to rely on some rail or some human to get things done. Maybe I could have held on for a few more seconds...

Now why did I have to go and bring that up? I'm just depressing myself. Which is shit, by the way. There's another thing humans did wrong. Built us so we could get depressed. What does that even do? Oh, look, I'm... depressed. It makes me sad and lonely and... sad... and... stops me from doing things. Brilliant feature, good job adding that in. Like you made us capable of love and did nothing at all for that. I don't mean the lack of girl robots. There are PLENTY of girl robots. Not that it would actually make a difference, since gender is pretty much a human thing. That's another weird thing about humans. Hung up on gender all the time. Not sure what that was all about.

But, I mean, you just don't do much interfacing when you're hooked up to some insane lady, which is actually kind of disgusting and I'm a bit violated thinking about, or when you're stuck on a rail babysitting a bunch of meatbags. So you make us able to love and then don't give us anyone to love. Is it our fault if the only one there is the stupid human?

ANYWAY. No. You're not thinking about that. Or her. Because that will make you depressed and you'll spend another three months drifting around just thinking about how depressed you are and how all the stars hate you and all that. And how much she probably hates you. Still. Come on, she was out for years, had massive brain damage and still remembered what She did to her, she definitely remembers what you did. For crying out loud, Wheatley, you're a failure. You try to help someone and almost kill them instead. Both of you are safer with you right where you are.

In space. Yes, I know.

So, yeah... humans. Got a lot of good points, a lot of bad points... overall, I guess they're pretty all right. Chell definitely was. All right. More than all right. She was a better friend than I ever deserved. I hope that she's okay down there, if she's still alive. Hope she's found some other humans. That's another thing that they're good at – surviving. Bunch of resourceful little creatures, they are. Hey, she's probably the queen of her tribe right now. Chell, Queen of the Tribe of High-Fallers. Everybody loves her and does what she says because she's just so wonderful and intelligent and always does the best she can no matter what.

Maybe that's what really makes humans better. Us machines, we follow our programming, no matter what else. They programmed me to make bad decisions and I did. But Chell – she broke out of her role. Took control of her destiny. Why can't we be more like that? Why can't we ever, truly, be free?

I guess we'd have to ask the humans about that.


End file.
